To bet on the upcoming presidential election, don’t just rely on polls.
Look at the billions of taxpayer dollars President Biden is pouring into “community organizations” in “disadvantaged communities” to tip the election scales.
The community organizer who became president, Barack Obama, was a master at machine politics. He used federal tax dollars to turn community organizations — left-wing not-for-profits — into a fourth branch of government.
Their staffs, paid using taxpayer money but not tied to government rules, could hit the streets at election time and build turnout.
Joe Biden has scaled up Obama’s playbook, using billions of dollars instead of mere millions.
West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito made headlines last week when she publicized the Environmental Protection Agency’s $50 million “environmental justice” grant awarded to a group called the Climate Justice Alliance.
The group, Capito was distressed to learn, has vowed that “the path to climate justice travels through a free Palestine.”
In fact, Climate Justice Alliance serves up a full agenda of radical activities, including fighting “political oppression” and “placing race, gender, and class at the center” of its climate solutions.
But $50 million for Climate Justice Alliance is a drop in the bucket.
Had members of Congress read the Inflation Reduction Act before passing it in 2022 — a novel idea — they would have known that the law provides $2.8 billion to the EPA for “environmental and climate justice block grants” (Section 60201).
That’s a license to hand out walking-around money to many political activists, not just Climate Justice Alliance.
Who are some of the other recipients?
One is the New York Immigration Coalition, which describes itself as a “coalition of immigrant and refugee organizations” pushing for more government services and political clout.
Same is true of the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, another recipient of EPA cash.
The words “climate” and “environment” don’t appear anywhere on these groups’ websites or literature.
Lawmakers may have assumed they were authorizing money for climate improvement, but the IRA’s fine print allows the moolah to be used to “facilitate engagement of disadvantaged communities in State and Federal advisory groups, workshops, rule makings and other public processes.”
Translation: elections.
How easy is it to get the dough? Piece of cake.
The EPA says it wants to “alleviate much of the burden that the federal grants process places on small resource-constrained community-based organizations supporting underserved communities and marginalized populations.”
In short, no jumping through hoops.
The money can only go to a disadvantaged community or a southern border town.
There are 27,521 disadvantaged communities on the US Census map, according to Biden’s “Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool,” which targets non-English speakers, people with diabetes and other factors that mostly correspond to heavily minority populations.
These communities customarily vote Democratic.
Adding eligibility for border towns is an interesting twist. As waves of migrants overwhelm resources in these areas, Democrats are growing divided over Biden’s open border policies.
Federal money may shore up support for the incumbent.
During his first week as president, Biden issued an executive order implementing the Justice40 initiative, a new rule requiring that 40% of many types of federal spending — not just EPA grants — must go to these “disadvantaged communities.”
The Department of Energy, too, is spreading money to “disadvantaged communities,” using what it calls “community benefit plans” and promising “intentionally flexible” application requirements.
This playbook started with ObamaCare — the Affordable Care Act.
The ACA authorized the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to hand out “community transformation grants.”
Community Health Councils, a typical recipient, pledged that its mission was to advance “social justice.”
It distributed 65% of its $7.9 million windfall in 2012 to partner community groups that promoted “voter engagement,” conducted “one-on-one education in the streets” or led tenants’ rights, anti-fracking and anti-drilling efforts.
And you thought the ACA was about covering the uninsured.
A decade after Obama, Biden is tasking every agency and department of the federal government to promote voter engagement.
Biden’s community grants pale in size compared to his student-debt cancellation vote-buying scheme, which now totals $620 billion.
But the community grant money lands directly in the hands of political activists who know what to do with it.
Tell your congressional representative to read bills before voting on them — and to strip out these community giveaways that make a mockery of democracy.
